War Scenario. Part LIV (Last)

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1015 Hours
13th November 2012
India



DM finished reading the thick 100+ page file that contained bulk of agreements signed between India and China, closed his eyes and leaned back on his chair. He had been working like a mule for last two weeks and it was the first moment in many days when he felt that he could relax. Even then, he couldn't help but think about the deal that was about to be finalised with Chinese. Initially, Chinese negotiations team was really stubborn and inflexible, but Indians were quite a match for them and had succeeded in getting a favourable agreement after mostly acrimonious talks that lasted almost a week. But owing to unprecedented extraordinary circumstances, it was finalized in a record time.


As was expected, the talks had started in a very hostile environment. Chinese armed forces had suffered horrendous losses without much to show for it. Additionally, they had been forced to cede ground to supposedly numerically and technically inferior enemy. Their humiliation was made even worse by the capture of 2 nuclear missiles along with 100s of soldiers and capture of an intact nuclear submarine followed by sinking of another two even before the hostilities had begun. Unlike the conflict in J&K-Tibet area that followed later, these incidents had been milked to their last drops by Indians on world stage. PLA officers which formed the bulk of Chinese negotiations team were none too happy for that. They had shown their displeasure over what was termed as"lack of maturity and foresight" by India, which was promptly rebutted by their Indian counterparts.

As was expected, Chinese had brought up every outstanding issue including status of Tibetan rebels, Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin etc., many of which had little to do with the task at hand. These tactics were meant to throw Indians off the guard but Indians too had good experience in such matters and the negotiations had dragged on for days before USA and Russia had put in all of their resources forcing the two belligerent nations to hammer out a compromise. Chinese were loathe to admit that India had successfully used tactical nuclear weapons on four of their bases and had vigorously denied all such reports. India on it's part maintained a stony silence. But within days of the attack, proofs to this effect had been released in public domain. There was much brouhaha in the usual circles, bringing even more pressure to get an effective ceasefire.

Chinese had agreed to Indian claim on Pakistan occupied part of J&K earlier, but balked and nearly walked out when Indians staked their claim on Shaksgam Valley and Aksai Chin. Indians on their part pointed out that Shaksgam valley was more or less under Indian control and so was almost 40% of Aksai Chin. Indian offensive had been halted just a few 10s of KMs from the vital Chinese National Highway 219. But Chinese in spite of putting in best of their efforts had been unable to push back Indians from any front except a couple.
After much heated and prolonged talks, Chinese had agreed to hand over control of Shaksgam Valley to India, in exchange of Indian pull back in Aksai Chin which was hotly contested by Indians leading to another deadlock. This was broken off after much haggling and heart burn on both sides.
After many such deadlocks, gist of some important agreements were:


1) All of J&K except Aksai Chin under Indian control. All of Pakistan occupied J&K and Shaksgam Valley under sovereign Indian control accompanied by removal of all Chinese personnel from these areas.

2) India withdraws forces from Aksai Chin back to their previous positions. Indian team spent longest amount of time on this as the territorial gains made in the sector was substantial. . Indians agreed to only a partial withdraw and refused to abandon their new and advantageous positions The issue was not solved to satisfaction of either party and left for future talks.

3) Assurance by both nations over non-interference in each other's internal conflicts. In nutshell, all Indian support to Tibetan rebels inside China ceases. Similarly, China stops supporting Naxals and separatist groups in north-east India.

4) In spite of their best efforts, Indians were unable to get anything agreed upon Chinese claims on Arunachal Pradesh. The matter too was left undecided pending further discussions.

5) Unconditional release of all the prisoners from both sides. Considering that Chinese formed almost all of the group, they were rather keen on it and willing to get it over with as soon as possible. The issue of two nuclear missiles and submarine was contested by India as winner's right to the war trophy. India later agreed to hand over the weapon systems back to China (after suitable investigations).

6) Chinese delegation was put under considerable pressure by Indians over the issue of extradition and trial of Chinese personnel responsible for nuclear attack on India. India never had any kind of extradition treaty with China and they used this loophole to wriggle free. Only consolation available to India were assurances "set in stone" that the guilty people will be tried and punished under international observation


After a while DM opened his eyes and called for Defence Secretary Pillai. He was one of the most senior members from the Indian negotiations team and had drafted a significant part of the recently signed agreement himself. DM had picked up the file again and was leafing through the pages when he entered. Pillai greeted the minister and waited for him to speak. DM put the file down and said, " "Well Pillai jee. Seems like we've done not a really bad job after all ."

"Not the best, but could've done worse. Got most of what we wanted in J&K, but couldn't get anything done on Arunachal and extradition. A mixed bag if you ask me."

DM nodded, " Nobody ever gets everything. They refuse to handover those criminals, we refuse to go back from Aksai Chin."

Pillai looked at the file on table and said, "That's what is troubling me. Don't you think that it'll provoke them in to engaging even more mischief than usual."

DM stood up and walked to the window of his office. After staring outside for a while, he turned and faced DS., "We've been dealing with their mischief for decades now. One time we stood up to their bullying, they back down like a whipped dog. After what we've gone through, I'm not afraid of anything. If they have any problem with our attitude, too bad mate. But that's how things are going to be from now on. "

A surprised grin formed on Pillai's face as he heard somewhat undiplomatic words coming out of possible Prime Minister of India. "So, we're signing it right now ? "

DM nodded, " Yes. No point in delaying it further. I also need you to prepare a press release and a speech for the press conference. I'll need you besides me there. "

"Yes sir." Pillai stood up to take his leave.



Epilogue


3 February 2013
BNT News Release


Emergency workers and rescuers have found no trace of General Kong and retired CPC member An Wang, after the yacht they were sailing in disappeared in South China sea, just a few KM away from coastal city of Shantou . Till now, only parts of the yacht have been discovered floating just a few km from the area where it was last reported to be 36 hours before. It had lost contact with mainland and other ships in middle of the night during a low intensity rain storm.
Search for the yacht and it's occupants is still going on. According to one rescue worker, it's nearly impossible for a yacht of that size to disappear just like that without any one seeing it at least once. Each passing moment with no trace of survivors makes any chance of their survival extremely bleak.

Although it was never declared publicly, these two were some of the senior most Chinese officials forced to resign from their posts over the role they had allegedly played in incidents that had lead to a nuclear conflict with India.



6th February 2013
Xinhua News Agency


3 PLA personnel lost their lives in a tragic road accident in Dagze. a small town near Lhasa. Dead include General Chan , his aide Major Kong and driver Corporal Fai. According to witnesses, Corporal Fai lost control of the car they were traveling in while negotiating a sharp turn and hit a road barrier. The car turned turtle on hitting the barrier and rolled down the slope to the gorge below killing all it's occupants on the spot. Their bodies have been recovered and sent to their families for last rites.
General Chang just had just assumed command of PLA's Dagze supply base and was on an familiarisation tour when the mishap occurred.




1223 Hours
8th Feruary 2013
PM's Office
New Delhi, India


NSA chief Angad, entered the office of India's newest PM and handed him a file, "Last night, Chinese forces again shelled some of our posts in Aksai Chin. No causalities, but seems like that they are making a routine of it."

"I suppose, some people in China are getting scared." PM Shivendra smiled and started browsing through the file. "What is going on with our Tibetan friends ?"


"They're getting restless now. They say that they've been lying low for long enough. I think they are right. They've had ample time to train, regroup and gather supplies."


PM nodded, "I know. Tell them to wait just a little bit more. Also send my personal thanks for their help in our little mission in Dagze. They deserve whatever we can offer them."


Angad nodded his head in agreement and stood up to leave. Apparently, war was not over yet.
 

War Scenario. Part LIII

Previous Part



0100 Hours
6th November 2012
Somewhere In India



Just like the last time, Chinese President came to the point of interest immediately, "Mr. Angad, I must strongly protest your army's actions in Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley. I thought that we had an agreement on not escalating the violence till we catch and punish the criminals on our side. "


DM Angad shot back, " Are you that ignorant of what your military is doing right in front of you or are you just playing with us Mr. Peng ? Also, our armed forces are acting under our direct orders and our orders were to not to take any further attack lying down. Your army attacked us without any provocation near Shaksgam Valley, then fired 16 cruise missiles at us. You think that we'll take all that provocations lying down ? I had warned you earlier against any further misadventure which you ignored."


"That helicopter of yours was shot down by some over zealous guards when it seemed like it was going to cross over to our side. It was an honest mistake."


DM grind his teeth in anger, " Honest mistake ! Your men not only shot down the helicopter which was 10s of KMs away from territory occupied by you, but also ambushed our soldiers who went out to help the survivors. Your men were no ordinary border guards. They were well trained special forces operatives and were under specific instructions to sabotage and harass our military personnel. We have their dead bodies and identity papers to show for it. Don't you lie with me on this one Mr. Peng. We all know who was responsible for what."
Seeing uncomfortable the look on other people's faces present in room, DM took a deep breath to calm himself then continued, "Even if you were not at fault there, who is going to take responsibility for firing off 16 missiles at us ? Was that one of your investigative tactics ? "



Chinese President answered with a menace in his voice, " I don't think that you understand what is at stake here. Your country has already suffered one nuclear attack. I don't even want to imagine what a full fledged nuclear war will do to your beautiful nation. "


This was the last straw for DM who shot up from his chair and hissed in to the mouthpiece, " If you are blackmailing us with your nuclear toys, then you'll do well to remember the fate of your Pakistani poodles. They tried playing the same game with us and see what that brought for them.You make one stupid move and I swear that your fate will be worse than Pakis. You must be extremely naive to think that I'm making empty threats."
All the pretense of diplomatic speech was gone from the conversation.

Seeing the move backfiring, Chinese Pres immediately changed track , " I hope you understand that we are not fighting over a personal issue here. Lives of one-thirds of the world's population are at stake here. Any hot-headed decision will be catastrophic for the whole world. "


" Please don't lecture me on this. It became personal for me and for everybody else when we saw more than thirty thousand fellow Indians burn to death in an instant. What surprises me that you still have the gall to call and threaten us."


Chinese President's voice assumed a conciliatory tone, "I completely understand what your country is going through, but you must understand that the attack was a conspiracy between Pakistanis and a few Chinese rogue elements. We can't let isolated incidents disrupt peace when so much is at stake."


"I'll tell you what is at stake for you. If you don't agree to what we demand, then be ready to say good bye to your China as you know it. With Pakistan, we limited our strikes to military targets. We wouldn't be so considerate in your case. Every single city of your's in our range will be burnt to ashes. I'll personally start the massacre by firing off your two missiles that we captured from Gilgit. I had warned you of what we are capable of in our last conversation and trust me, I'll do exactly that. "


"We'll do exactly what we agreed upon in our previous conversation, as soon as you call back your soldiers from our territory."


DM answered with a twisted smile, " I'm sorry to say it to you, but Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley don't belong to China anymore. Even as we talk, our soldiers are pushing back yours to reclaim what's rightfully ours."


"We don't have much time to play such games. I'm requesting you to put an end to hostilities and recall your soldiers. Otherwise things will get nasty real quick."


Ignoring the threat DM continued, "I hear Tibetans and Uighurs are giving you lots of trouble. Also, US is right at your throat over that Taiwanese F-16 incident. I suggest you forget about Aksai Chin and Shaksgam and concentrate on rest of your trouble spots."


"You must know that we have the capability of doing much worse with your dissidents than what you can do with ours." was the predictable reply, which most people in the room just shrugged off.


Everyone in the room watched the verbal duel between the two leaders with bated breaths. Indian blitzkrieg in two sectors had routed the Chinese defences. In Aksai Chin, two pronged attack by Indian mountain divisions had over run most of their defensive strongholds and taken control of vital highways that Chinese had constructed. Indians had preferred bypassing Chinese forces and encircling them wherever possible instead of engaging in pitched battles. Shaksgam Valley which had only token military presence too was overrun without much trouble. Guerrilla attacks by Tibetan rebels helped in no less deal by SFF had disrupted Chinese supply lines and thrown most of their battle plans out of order. Even if PLA succeeded in pushing Indians back over the next few days, it'd still be a major embarrassment for much hyped Chinese military might. And as of now, PLA looked too disorganized and disoriented even to put up a decent fight.
Indians had been bracing up for an attack further south in Arunachal Pradesh, but so far the fight had been limited to artillery duels with neither side committing to a full scale fight, which suited India just fine.
After the successive setbacks, Chinese had at realised their own precarious position and were looking for a way to save their face. Everybody knew that Chinese President was on phone only because he was on the verge of a very embarrassing defeat.
His aggressive posturing was nothing more than false bravado and attempts of intimidation, which had no effect on Indians. Seeing all of his attempts of bullying Indian leadership in to submission, Peng changed tracks.

"Listen Mr Angad. We all realize that a war is not in our interest. We need to end the conflict before it expands and turns nastier. Nuclear weapons have already been used. So far, only military targets have been attacked but you know we have to end this before either of us are forced in to some thing even more destructive. We need to wind all this down"

DM leaned back on his chair and looked around the room at the people surrounding him and spoke, "What are you offering us ?"





0700 Hours
6th November 2012


BREAKING NEWS


India and China have both agreed to a ceasefire to the conflict which was threatening to put the world on brink of a nuclear war. The news has come as a major relief to whole of the world as the battles between two nuclear armed rivals started to escalate and spread to multiple fronts.Both nations have agreed to cease hostilities and hold immediate negotiations to resolve their disputes. A Chinese delegation will land in New Delhi within next few hours to this effect.


As many of our viewers already know, India had accused China of hatching a conspiracy which culminated with 2 nuclear missiles being launched from Pakistan, one of which killed more than 25000 people in Rajasthan. Other missile targeted towards Mumbai was intercepted and destroyed in midair by Indian home grown missile defence system.

In retaliation, India had launched a massive nuclear and conventional weapons based attack on Pakistan which all but wiped out Pakistan from world map, causing millions of causalities. Hours after the attack, Indian military had captured a Chinese nuclear submarine just a few KM south of Gawadar port and two Chinese nuclear tipped ICBMs from a tunnel near Gilgit from Pakistan controlled part of J&K. Based upon the evidence collected, India had accused one senior member of CPC identified as Admiral (retd) Xedong of masterminding the nuclear attack on Indian soil. China had first rejected Indian demands of handing over Admiral Xedong and 7 other CPC and PLA officers and put Admiral Xedong in custody. Xedong was considered by many to be one of the likely candidates for the chair of Chinese president after Peng's terms got over next year in August. Massive riots had broken out in many Chinese cities after news of Xedong's death in custody had leaked out.

Two days after the incident, advancing Indian forces in Pak occupied Kashmir were involved in a conflict with Chinese forces near Shaksgam valley. The small fire fight quickly escalated in to something much worse as China launched more than a dozen cruise missiles at Indian bases in J&K, causing serious damage to Leh airfield. In retaliation, India attacked dozens of Chinese bases in Aksai Chin and Tibet. Although, both sides are tight lipped about it right now, some reports suggest that India used at least two nuclear tipped missiles in the attack.
Chinese forces in the area which were already battling resurgent Tibetan and Uighur rebels were unable to withstand the subsequent blitzkrieg of Indian air and ground attack and were forced to abandon their positions in Shaksgam Valley and Aksai Chin.


According to experts, Chinese forces were stretched too thin due to their ongoing operations against domestic insurgency which had disrupted their supply lines in the remote and rough terrain. Additionally, Chinese government had came under immense international pressure after another conflict with Taiwan and USA seemed imminent brought upon by downing of Taiwanese F-16 fighter plane by a Chinese warship. After the incident USA had dispatched two of it's CBGs to help Taiwan defend itself against any further Chinese aggression.
Although no official confirmation has come in yet, it's believed that Indian, Chinese and US submarines were involved in a shooting match east of Andaman islands which resulted in sinking of at least one Chinese submarine.
All of this has seemed to helped Indian forces in their war with China as they overran Chinese defences in Shaksgam Valley and parts of Aksai Chin, before their advance slowed down due to pressure on their supply lines and fierce Chinese resistance. Before the declaration of ceasefire, Indian forces in Aksai Chin had penetrated up to 110 km in some sectors

Right now, it's unclear whether India will hand over the captured territory back to China. Although China has agreed to Indian claim on Pakistan controlled part of J&K, both parties remained tight lipped over the Chinese controlled areas. It's quite likely that India will drive a hard bargain with China over it and probably try to get a favourable agreement on long standing border disputes. Considering that Indians have a fully weaponised Chinese nuclear submarine and crew along with at least 350 Chinese soldiers and civilians in their custody, it seems that they will have an upper hand during the negotiations. Also under present circumstances, world opinion seems more or less to be on Indian side. Though it remains to be seen how it'll affect the negotiations . 

War Scenario. Part LII

Previous Part




0120 Hours
5 November 2012
Phalcon AWACS
Skies Over Laddakh


The incident caused a fair amount of heart burn inside Chinese military. In spite of being stretched to the limit by Uighur and Tibetan rebels, PLA still had formidable offensive firepower at it's disposal and Mission Controller onboard Indian Phalcon AWACS was first to notice it when Chinese launched a large salvo of their much hyped DH-11 long range cruise missiles. Phalcon's radar had detected the missiles while they were still 7-8 minutes away from Leh and the crew was sending out warnings frantically.

Mission controller aboard Indian Phalcon AWACS was shouting in to the mouthpiece, " Lima this is Eagle Eye, we have 16 confirmed DH-11 inbound right at your position. I repeat, 16 DH-11 inbound at your position. Take cover immediately."

In what could be considered a mixed bag, All of Chinese missiles were launched from a single location. Sabotage by Tibetan rebels, while not entirely successful had still affected Chinese military significantly. In ideal conditions, Chinese would have launched a larger number of missiles from a wide encircling arc, confusing the defenders and saturating their air defense assets. But owing to shortage of missiles and safe places from where to launch, they were forced to launch all missiles from a single location. Although it made the job of tracking these missiles somewhat easier, it also meant that the air defenses in that particular corridor will be overwhelmed and atleast some of the missiles will pass through unscathed.

Although important, such thoughts were hardly going through any body's mind on the besieged base. Instead they were working furiously to meet the attack head on and save whatever they could before launching a counter attack. The base was operating at war level and all the civilian traffic was already stopped. The runway was being used exclusively by military transporters and fighter jets which immediately scrambled in to air within a minute of the warning. The planes which could not take to air were moved to underground bunkers and rest moved as far away from the base as possible. 6 more Mig 29s fully fuelled and armed joined 4 others which were already on CAP duty. All this while crews of air defence wing waited tensely for the Chinese missiles to come within their kill radius. Owing to it's high strategic value, Leh airbase had received some serious defence upgrades consisting of multiple Akash and SPYDER SAMs placed all around as well as inside the base. It was going to be the first trial in combat for both of the systems.


An Akash battery placed in Chapo, nearly 110 Km forward of the base was first to acquire a lock on incoming bandits. 12 SAMs arose almost simultaneously to intercept first of DH-11 which were flying just 10s of metres above the mountain peaks
Of the 12 missiles launched at 7 different cruise missiles, 4 found their targets while the rest missed. Some failed as they lost lock on target amongst mountains, while the rest exploded harmlessly after their target was destroyed by another missile. By the time crews could reload the launchers, remaining DH-11s were already out of their kill zone or passed by without ever coming in range.

Another Akash battery placed in Arganglas took out another 5, but that still left out 7 DH-11s which moved on to their terminal phase as they neared their designated targets. People still left in the city now watched as 7 white streaks came in from the north. Short ranged SPYDER missiles rose to intercept these and managed to knock out 3 before first of the cruise missiles found it's target and hit the runway. The warhead consisted of runway denial explosives and damaged it enough to stop all aircraft landings and takeoffs for hours if not days. Another missile probably targeted at the helicopter wing missed it's aim and crashed in to the War Memorial just a few meters north of it. Although the helicopter hangars suffered some damage, losses were not high as most of the equipment and personnel were already away from the area. Third missile was hit by the radar guided AAA fire and crashed outside the airport in a civilian populated area causing dozens of causalities. Last of the missiles escaped all the last ditch AAA fire and hit the underground pens of Mig 29s. But the structures were made to handle exactly such kind of hits and the damage was minimal.

Considering the amount of firepower launched to take it out, the base had escaped virtually unscathed. Only serious damage was to the runway which was put out of order for a few hours. None of the aircrafts and other vital assets were damaged. Four Mig 29s which were on CAP duty earlier were starting to get a bit low on the fuel and were diverted to Srinagar.

While Indian personnel in the base worked to repair the damage, others elsewhere started on their missions to inflict at least equal if not more pain to Chinese for yet another attack. Work on a counter attack had begun as soon as the warnings of incoming missiles had come in. By the time last of the Chinese missiles had been cleared out of skies, Indian missile crews were ready with their own reply. Although Chinese had a seemingly overwhelming quantitative advantage over Indians, civil war inside two provinces and escalating conflict with Taiwan-US and tensions with Russia had stretched their resources to the limits. Thus providing Indians with a fighting chance if they planned their moves right.
India had already declared it's willingness to go nuclear against China in face of any more provocations and thus replied back in a way that few people anywhere had ever expected.
Within minutes of Chinese attack, Indians had launched their own Shaurya hypersonic cruise missiles. Although Chinese too had fairly robust air defense systems in form of S300 ABM, sheer scale of attack overwhelmed their defenses, helped in no less deal by the uniqueness of a hypersonic cruise missile. Of 19 missiles launched, 13 found their targets. Unlike Chinese, Indians had spread their choice of targets on multiple bases and the effects on Chinese military capability in those areas were crippling. Most of their military bases north of J&K in Tibet were hit with conventional explosive warheads, except for 4 which were annihilated with nuclear bunker busters. Those bases were suspected to be store Chinese nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.
Chinese military assets in Aksai Chin were given special attention. Two whole Chinese Rapid Reaction Force divisions had been mobilized in to the region to thwart any Indian offensive and these took brunt of the damage. Chinese edge in armoured part was more or less neutralised, first by three conventional missile strikes, then by bombing raids by Jaguars which followed minutes later.
The disproportionate response by Indians dealt a crippling blow on Chinese ability to wage war in Laddakh-Tibet sector and they needed to move fast in order to capitalize on it. Compared to Aksai Chin, Shaksgam Valley area was lightly defended. One reason was it's previous border with ally Pakistan and another was it's difficult mountainous terrain. Anything needed to maintain strong defensive positions in the area was prohibitively expensive and difficult like hell. For Indians, biggest hurdle in Shaksgam Valley was weather and terrain. On the other hand, comparatively flatter terrain of Aksai Chin was more conductive to troop movements and pitched battles both by armour as well as infantry. Both India and China had strong military presence along this border. Although Chinese had better roads and were numerically stronger, precision missile and air strikes had neutralized much of their offensive capability.
After near complete destruction of Pakistani military, Indian armed forces were feeling confident enough to move most of their Pakistan centric defenses towards the China border, thus strengthening their position vis-a-vis Chinese.It was only 2-3 hours after the Chinese cruise missile attack that the first of Indian soldiers entered the Indian territory illegally held by China.

War Scenario LI

Previous Part

1655 Hours
4 November 2012
Forward Army HQ
Turtok, 101 KM North East of Leh




Advancing Indian forces in Pak occupied Kashmir were facing logistical nightmares of highest magnitude possible. Except for occasional pot shots few left-over jihadis and defiant Paki army personnel, resistance they were facing was almost non-existent. But most of their problems were related to terrain and shortage of transports. Nobody had really planned for such operations and as such decisions that would require months if not weeks of careful planning and setting up of logistics chains were being made on the spot based upon vague assurances of speedy resupplies from distant HQs. There were very few operational roads connecting the two parts of divided state and those were swamped with panicked refugees trying to stream in to India. Relief camps had to be setup to help the civilians and in India which other organisations except army is expected to deal with the mess !

Civilian administration of J&K, inspite of all it's lofty talks of love between the divided people and porous border whines had simply washed it's hands off the whole mess expecting army to do the dirty work. Thankfully for army commanders, DM had personally intervened and sent some stern messages to state's CM to share the workload, thus freeing up resources desperately needed by army elsewhere. Even then, rush of refugees was hindering work as their miles long caravans clogged up few motorable roads, leaving army with little choice except helicopters to transport men and supplies. The fact that the bulk of fleet was busy strengthening defences against China was just another inconvenience.
The hectic work detail was taking it's toll on helicopter crews. Ferrying men and precious cargo always has been their job and most claimed to enjoy it. But doing the same round the clock without rest in war like conditions in unfamiliar territory is enough to cause fatigue even in best of the lot. And fatigue causes mistakes which could prove disastrous. CO of Turtok base, Colonel Mudabar Chidambaram base was more than aware of the fact and was trying his level best to ease the workload. But his efforts were not proving enough. His small base was inundated with frantic requests of supplies from various quarters and he couldn't do anything except send the pilots on one more sortie, one after another.
He knew for a fact that his luck wouldn't hold out for long and the feeling was making him queasy. Although all the pilots under his command were highly trained professionals, there was a limit to which they could be pushed.

The base was first started as part of Operation Sadbhavna by Indian Army in it's mission to help the locals by setting up much needed medical camps, schools and vocational training centers. The rugged area had little contact with rest of the world and the for ethnic Balti tribals of the area, work done by the army was the only thing that they could identify as governance. The base had first started off as a small helipad where helicopters from Leh landed carrying supplies to be distributed in surrounding areas. It was still exactly like that when hostilities broke out and as such, it's meager resources and infrastructure were overwhelmed in a matter of hours.


Although it was only three days since the nature of work at base had changed, for Col Mudabar it seemed like another lifetime. A large portion of the local population had been evacuated except a few who stubbornly stayed back to for various reasons, mostly related to their livelihood. Right now, instead of friendly locals, base was swarming with tense armed forces personnel.


The first signal that some of his worst fears were coming true when the communications officer reported loss of contact with one of Mi 17 helicopters approximately 10 Km south of Shaksgam Valley, in control of China.
The area had always been one of the most difficult to operate in. It was covered with some of the highest and least accessible mountain peaks with little human habitation and sustaining infrastructure. Even Pakistan didn't place any significant military resources there considering the high cost and the fact that they had gifted away surrounding areas to China. They lacked will and resources to control the area anyway.
In a war to capture the territory, this would most probably an advantage for the attackers, but not in this case. After near complete surrender and abandonment of posts by Pakistani Rangers and army, Indian army was obliged to fill up the gap. But lack of any dependable infrastructure, roads etc. was a major impediment to their efforts to establish control over the region. But the most worrying aspect of the situation was nearly certain war with China. The area needed massive influx of Indian forces in shortest time possible and the many choppers like the old workhorse Mi 17 were flying back to back missions, dropping men and supplies.
Loss of radio contact was not an uncommon phenomena in such areas. Not all of the machines had modern communication systems on board and thus were prone to communication blackouts under certain conditions. Although, most of the time it was some non-critical problem related to comms gear, it always increased the heartbeats of people involved. It didn't happen very often, but whenever it happened, it sure subtracted a few minutes of life from everyone connected to the mission.
Currently the base was experiencing one similar situation. A Mi-17 transport helicopter with call sign Mike11 was on a sortie to drop some much needed supplies and ammunition for advancing Indian troops on an mission to consolidate their newly won positions in PoK, some 4 Km south of Chinese controlled Shaksgam Valley. Due to bad weather in area, pilot had lost his way and there had been no communication since last 15 minutes. As usual, Col Mudabar was personally coordinating the flights and the creases on his forehead were getting deeper with every passing second. Each passing moment brought the night closer and there were less than a hour before it became impossible for pilots to navigate without night vision devices.
Communication people on ground were frantically calling the lost helicopter without pause as other helicopters landed or took off with their crew and cargo. But there had been no response till now.

“Any luck contacting Major Kale yet ?” he asked one of the comms engineers. Missing chopper was on it's way to drop the supplies for Major Kale's team and there had been no contact with him either. The answer was negative and Col. Mudabar grimaced on hearing it. “What the hell is going on down there ?” he asked loudly to nobody in particular.
“Shall we send another chopper to search for them ?” the question was asked by a burly Jaat subedar, most of whose whose duties till date had been loading and unloading of helicopters.

“Do you have one lying spare for the job ?” Col snapped back annoyed. Subedar was slightly confused by the reply and was about to answer something when the voice of Major Kale came alive on radio. There was lots of static and the comms engineer had to fiddle quite a bit with the radio knobs to make the transmission audible. Col snatched the mouthpiece at once and asked Major Kale, “What's going on out there Major ? Where are you guys and where is our Mi17 ?”

Major Kale had to shout to get himself heard, “We were attacked. lost the chopper and ....” rest of the transmission was lost as his voice was overcome by the static.
But it was enough to give a pause to everybody within earshot. Only Col Mudabar seemed unaffected and he took control of the radio himself, shouting in to the mouthpiece , trying to contact Major again. He seemed slightly relieved when Kale came back on air again. His story was just as bad as his first line. Major Kale's team was at an unnamed location, simply known as Point 4677, nearly 3 KM south of Shaksgam Valley awaiting the chopper to drop supplies. The Mi17 had come in almost right at time and was hovering and dropping supply crates when a MANPAD was launched from a hill in north taking down the copper like a brick. Only the co-pilot had survived, that too with broken legs and crushed ribs. The army team rushed to the stricken helicopter to rescue any survivors when they came under heavy machine gun and grenade fire. Two soldiers were immediately killed and 3 more injured before they were able to take cover and fire back. But the attackers had advantage of surprise and better positions. Indians had lost 5 more soldiers before they could disengage and find better positions.

Survivors had to fall back and had nothing to help them with reinforcements or extraction for quite some time to come in a unfamiliar and hostile territory. Col Mudabar slammed the mouthpiece down on the table in frustration and looked around to worried faces around him. Gesturing with his eyes and hands he ordered everybody else to get on with their work while he took up the radio again to contact his seniors.


Help for ambushed Indian team came in an unexpected way. It just happened that three prototypes of indigenous Light Combat Helicopter were finishing their high altitude weapon trials in Leh when hostilities broke out. LCH was supposed to provide heavy mobile firepower in scenarios just like this one. All the trials had went on well to match or even exceed the expectations. So, the proposal of the senior test pilot to perform the ultimate trial by fire in combat received a guarded go ahead. Within minutes of receiving the distress call two of the LCHs, armed to the teeth with 20mm canon and 35mm rockets were rushing to aid the ambushed Indian infantry team.
Even while carrying near full loads, they could fly at altitudes nearing 6500m which provided them considerable protection from most of portable MANPADS and small arms fire. Thermal sights cued to the weapon controls allowed the pilots to locate and destroy man sized targets from any height. Rushing at speeds in excess of 300 kmph, the two choppers were in the area within minutes and started scouring the area for hostiles. Although the area in which people could disperse was large, the actual area navigable by foot was quite small owing to high mountains, glaciers and mountainous ravines. Therefore the Indian chopper team had little difficulty in locating the hostiles, who were marching towards northern border along the borders of one such mountain river.

Lead chopper, piloted by Squadron Leader Mayur located the 15 men hostile team first at a really vulnerable moment when they were trying to cross a small glacial river a few Km from the ambush site. Even flying at extreme altitudes, Indian helicopters had no difficulty in following the suspects owing to superb avionics on board. They kept watch waiting to provide Chinese a taste of their own medicine. They didn't have to wait too long as the Chinese men reached an icy ledge on banks of the river. The point was one of very few in region that could be used to cross the river by infantry. Even then, they needed ropes to pass over.
Unfortunately for Chinese, they had chosen wrong time to do so. Their orders had been to make life difficult for Indians in any way possible. Young PLA Captain leading the platoon had followed the orders enthusiastically that had resulted in deaths of 7 Indian soldiers and destruction of an Mi17, spreading panic within Indian camp. Unfortunately neither him nor his superiors had foreseen the consequences.
Currently the Chinese soldiers marched back to their base inside Shaksgam valley on a route that passed through hostile territory interspersed by mountains, glaciers, ice and rivers. The group was standing on a ledge on the bank of one such river, trying to cross it using a temporary rope bridge, when first of the LCH located them. Chinese were blissfully unaware of their impending doom as it hovered thousands of feet above, hidden by clouds and it's rotor noise masked by winds.
First of the Chinese soldiers to die didn't even knew what killed them as a salvo of 3 rockets fired from first chopper landed smack in between them as they stood on ledge trying to keep the rope-way stable.
The explosions blew them away to pieces and broke the ropes on which 2 other soldiers were trying to cross over. Both fell in to the icy glacial river and drowned within a minute. Rest of their companions fared only marginally better. A couple of them managed to pull up their guns to eyes but that was the maximum that they could do. Another salvo of rockets, this time fired from 2nd chopper obliterated the confused group they could gather any idea of what was going on . Only two Chinese soldiers survived the carnage, who were cut down by canon fire immediately after.
By picking a place and time favouring them, Indian chopper pilots had executed the ambush flawlessly. Chinese MANPADS crew had no chance of acquiring the helicopters and firing off any missile before being annihilated.
The incident didn't go unnoticed on either side which were already rushing reinforcements in to the battle. But the two LCH didn't stay to check as they turned back to their base at maximum speed.
 

War Scenario. Part L

Previous Part


1155 Hours
4 November 2012
PPC International News

In a further body blow to Pakistan, senior most leader of Baloch Nationalist Liberation Front, Gaffar Khan has declared Balochistan as an independent country. Appearing in a televised press conference in Switzerland, he declared Pakistan as a dead entity and while proclaiming Balochistan province as an independent country. We are quoting parts of the statement that he read out to media,
“ Pakistan was never a real nation. Unlike other nations, it was based on nothing but an ideology of hatred and bigotry. We the proud Baloch people have been suffering under the unjust and unwanted rule of Pakistani military which comprises almost exclusively of Punjabis. Our voices have been brutally trampled upon and silenced for decades. Thousands of innocent Baloch civilians have died in excesses perpetrated by Pakistanis. My own son and his pregnant wife were tortured and killed by these barbarians. Pakistani military which fancies itself as champions of Islam by bombing and killing unarmed civilians, but no more. Today along with blessings of all of Balochi leaders we are going to end this unjust occupation of our land. From now on Balochistan is an independent sovereign country free of Paki tyranny. Governments of India and Afghanistan have already given recognition to our nation and I urge heads of all the other nations to follow their lead.”

There has been no reaction from Pakistan as yet as the country is without any semblance of governance after retaliatory Indian nuclear strikes. It's powerful military which called the shots earlier is broken and scattered, first after the infighting between two powerful Generals and Indian attack that followed. There has been absolutely no opposition to Indian advance in Pak occupied Kashmir either where locals have been largely supportive of Indian troops till now. We are still waiting for reactions from other nations to come in.






1400 Hours
4 November 2012
Taiwan News


Major cities in Chinese mainland were rocked by violence after rumours of death of Admiral Xedong leaked out. He was arrested on charges of masterminding a conspiracy to smuggle nuclear tipped ballistic missiles to Pakistan, one of which destroyed a small western Indian town killing more than 25000 people. India had then release audio recordings of Adm Xedong conversing with a Chinese intelligence officer in Pakistan, where he had ordered the launching of missiles. An investigation team organised by Chinese President Lin had arrested Xedong and whisked him away to an unknown location for interrogations. Absolute secrecy was maintained so as to prevent his co-conspirators from influencing the investigations.
But today as rumours of his death started appearing on internet, people started appearing in streets of his birth place Guanzhou carrying placards condemning President Lin. Within hours there were reports of protesters taking to streets in Nanjing, Wuhan and Gulyang. A small group of protesters in Beijing trying to march towards Tiananmen Square was forced to break up by Chinese riot police. Some of the protest marches got out of control as people started arson and pelted stones and Molotov cocktails at official buildings and police forcing authorities to enlist help of army in dealing with protesters. Internet access in most parts of China has been severely curtailed as almost all sites and forums not sanctioned by Chinese authorities have been blocked.
An official from the home security department, however claimed that Admiral Xedong is alive and well in protective custody. Terming the unrest as a result of malicious rumour mongering, he denied all reports of Xedong's death as an attempt to disrupt peace in China.

Taiwanese parliament has expressed serious concern over the situation in China as relations between the two neighbours are at an all time low following a shoot down of a Taiwanese fighter plane by a Chinese warship. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior law maker from the ruling party expressed concerns that China might use the excuse of spreading civil unrest and tensions with India to launch a surprise attack on Taiwan in an attempt to capture it. Echoing his sentiments, official spokesperson of Taiwanese government issued a warning to China cautioning it against further misadventure. Taiwanese defence forces are already on full battle alert to guard against any such attack. United States too has come in support of Taiwan and dispatched two carrier battle groups as an warning against any Chinese misadventure in the region. 

War Scenario. Part XLVIII

Previous Part

1100 Hours
Mes Aynank, Afghanistan



Mes Aynak in Afghanistan is 69KM South east from Kabul and 25 km from Pakistan border. It lies along the famous Silk Road and was one of the biggest Buddhist centers in Afghanistan till 7th century AD and major stronghold of Kushan empire till 4th century BC. Although it's relation with Kushan empire is largely forgotten, it's still famous for it's archaeological importance as the second biggest archaeological site related to Buddhist heritage of Afghanistan. It gained notoriety in late 1990s as a training camp for terrorists run by where Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and was again promptly forgotten until a Chinese mining company won the contract for mining copper in 2007 for $ 3.5 Billion. The area is believed to hold the 2nd largest copper deposits in whole world. Afghanistan government is expected to earn $ 800 million even before the mining starts in earnest with royalties worth billions coming in later.

Owing to it's unexplored archaeological treasures, Chinese agreed to halt all mining activities until the site was properly surveyed and excavated by archaeologists. Although the mining was expected to start in 2014, there was considerable pressure on under-funded and under-staffed international archaeological teams to release as much area as possible for mining. Such moves had been been condemned from various quarters, with some people equating actions of Chinese firm equivalent to those of Taliban destroying Buddhist statues and artifacts in Bamiyan. But money is a strong motivator and Chinese had succeeded in persuaded enough people in power to start mining excavation on a plot on site much before the agreed time line. By early 2012, 500 Chinese workers hired by Chinese State Mining Corp. had already landed and begun initial groundwork on the site. A large number of Afghan civilians were also hired and pressed to work. For a country like Afghanistan it was like manna from heaven and nobody except the archaeological community and Americans was really complaining.
Sentiment among American public, whoever cared to know about the issue was of righteous betrayal. Thousands of American lives were lost and trillions of dollars spent in helping Afghans and it was Chinese who were stealing multi-billion dollar under their very noses.

Although most of the supervisors and all of the management was Chinese, going was good initially. But as with most foreign run operations, the tensions started to develop between the local workers and their foreigner supervisors. While Chinese could not understand the Afghan or muslims revulsion of pork, alcohol and ban on most forms of entertainment, Afghans on their part were put off by what they felt somewhat arrogant and exploitative attitude of their Chinese supervisors. But after a few initial hiccups, both parties were able to get along tolerably well. The mining process was slowly picking up steam with scale of operations increasing steadily.

It was on such a day that Rastin Khan walked in to the cabin of his Chinese supervisor asking for a holiday for himself and a few of his colleagues, which incidentally included most of his fellow villagers who worked alongside him. Wen Gong, was one of the few Chinese personnel on site who knew Pashto, one of languages spoken by Afghans. He took a look at the company's official holiday calendar and pointed it to Rastin, “ No holiday here Rastin. Can't do that.”

Rastin exceeded his Chinese supervisor in height by at least 14 inches and he looked down up on the diminutive man as one would look at a kid, “You don't understand. It's my brother's marriage and I along with my cousins and village men need to be there. It's just for four days.”

Wen shook his head emphatically, “ No, what you ask for is simply impossible. We cannot allow so many people to go on leave at this time. 18 workers ! Why do you need so many people for so long anyway ?” Even before Rastin could open his mouth to reply, he spoke again, “ It's impossible anyway. You'll have to come to work. We need every single man here.”

Rastin expressed an expression of exasperation. He was not used to some dwarfish guy in funny clothes and language boss him around like a lowly servant. But the mining job one of very few paying jobs in the country and he swallowed his pride and controlled his steadily rising anger, “ He is my only surviving brother. If I and my village men are not present in wedding, it'll be very inconvenient and shameful for my whole family and my village. I cannot afford to lose face like this.”

Now loss of face was one expression that Wen was familiar with. But still he had to save his own, “I cannot help you in this matter then. You can take one day off tomorrow but we are facing shortage of workers and anything beyond that is impossible .”

“One day !” Rastin exclaimed with disdain. “What will I do of one day's leave ?”

Wen cut in coldly, “That's all Rastin. Take this or leave the job. We have a long line of applicants begging for work.”

Rastin shouted in anger, “ Just because you have the mine, you think that you can treat us like dirt ? My father is head of my village and we take orders from no one. Least of all, stinky little rats like you.”

The burly Afghan's loud voice had begun to cause some commotion amongst his fellow countrymen. Some of them stopped whatever work they were busy with and started jostling to hear the conversation. This attracted the attention of Chinese guards, who started waving and gesturing the workers to get back to work. The commotion was interrupted by the sound of door crashing open and supervisor Wen following half flying in to the crowd. A stunned silence befell the crowd only to be broken by sounds of Afghans shouting and gesturing wildly by the appearance of Rastin a moment later. A few Chinese officers flanked by armed guards came running to the rescue of Wen who was lying dazed surrounded by a somewhat hostile crowd. Arrival of armed guards further infuriated the Afghan, resulting in a fair bit of jostling.

Although the unarmed Afghans formed a smaller part of the workforce, Chinese workers thought better of antagonizing them further. But an example had to be set. It was one unruly worker today, tomorrow there will be five. Such behaviour in an Chinese enterprise was simply unacceptable and the senior Chinese manager fired Rastin and few of his friends on the spot. The announcement was greeted by loud abuses and flash strike of all the Afghan workers. They were in turn warned of dismissals themselves, but the warning fell on deaf ears. Instead, it served as the proverbial last straw for the Afghans, who went on a rampage inside the premises. A large quantity of recently imported shiny new machinery was broken and set on fire, followed by parts of the office building. Chinese guards were becoming increasingly nervous and it was only a matter of time before a few bullets were fired. Rastin along with 6 other workers were shot, 3 of them died some time later.


Members of powerful local tribes took the incident as a personal insult and grave provocation. As is the case with all such cases, blood had to be paid for with blood. It being Chinese made no difference. A Lashkar of 180 men was soon assembled which ambushed the mining site just a few hours later. They attacked armed with RPGs, Machine guns and AKs before the besieged Chinese had any chance of organisng proper defence or call for help. Most of the NATO forces were away from the area and had little desire of getting involved in another useless bloody skirmish involving locals and Chinese. As such, the Afghan Lashkar had little difficulty in overwhelming the defences and taking hundreds of Chinese personnel hostage. Except for a twenty senior officials, all of them were tied and forced marched towards general direction of Pakistan before letting go.
The incident didn't go well with Afghan government either. It immediately came under enormous domestic pressure to renegotiate the contract with Chinese, if not kick them outright.

War Scenario. part XLVI

Previous Part

0650 Hours
PPC World News

In a somewhat expected event, a senior member of Chinese ruling party, Admiral (Retd) Zlin Xedong was suspended and placed under arrest on charges of misuse of his authority. It was declared in a statement issued by a senior spokesperson of CPC. According to statement, Chinese President was forced to issue orders to this affect after government's investigators uncovered solid proof of his involvement in a plot to spoil developing mutually beneficial relationships between China and India. In a well planned conspiracy that involved many senior and middle level officers of Pakistani military, Admiral Xedong plotted clandestine attack on India in complete violation of official Chinese policy of peaceful and prosperous co-existence. Involvement of some other senior Chinese PLA officers is also under investigation. Exact motive of conspirators is not clear at the moment,

After the investigative team intimated President Peng of it's findings, he immediately ordered Adm Xedong to be placed under arrest awaiting further trial while investigations against other officers get completed. According to many analysts, this step is probably aimed to mollify India smarting after a surprise nuke attack which it alleges was planned and financed by Chinese military. Just hours after a devastating retaliatory nuclear attack on it's arch enemy Pakistan, from where the rogue missile was launched, Indian Navy had captured a crippled Chinese submarine. Along with it's full crew, Indian Navy had also captured rebel Pakistani General Asgar. From him, they had recovered recorded conversations between Admiral Xedong and a low ranking Chinese liaison officer. According to the recordings, Admiral Xedong was heard planning more attacks on India. Chinese spokesperson while sympathizing with India expressed hope that the steps taken by China in it's mission to punish the miscreants will generate goodwill amongst Indians and world community. When asked by a reporter whether international agencies or India will be allowed to interrogate Admiral Xedong and his co-conspirators, the spokesperson declined to answer.

Responding to the statement, a senior official from Indian government praised the action taken by Chinese government as a positive one but also said that much needs to be done in order to punish the guilty. In an answer to a question regarding further role of Indian forces in Pak Occupied Kashmir, he said that the area is now formally under Indian control as another part of erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Refuting the allegations of land grab, the spokesperson went on to say that part of J&K under Chinese control should be handed over back to India as it was ceded illegally by Pakistan to China. There has been no reaction from Chinese on this as yet.

Reactions from other countries have been mixed. Although most of them except for notable exception of Israel and Russia have condemned the overwhelming nuclear attack on Pakistan, all of them unilaterally urged Indian government to be more pragmatic with China. In a televised interview, General Secretary UN Behn Ki urged both India and China to tread cautiously while billions of lives are in grave danger. He also urged China to find a peaceful solution to ongoing civil unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang. Although Chinese government has imposed strict curbs on news related to these provinces, sources indicate that the situation is getting worse by the day with escalating violence from all all sides.



0720 Hours
India




“What do you think of it Angad ? “ DM asked NIA chief who seemed to be lost in deep thought. It took a few seconds for him to realize that DM was addressing him. He had been thinking about the new development and was just dying to let it out. After a bit of start he answered, “They are lying. I'll bet my last rupee that Xedong is just a straw man. It cannot be a lone wolf or rogue mission. Support of a lot of people, right up to their higher ranking CPC people is necessary to pull off anything like this. We are talking about Chinese nukes being launched by Chinese personnel . Now they arrest some random ass and make him a sacrificial goat. We are not sure that even he would be punished at all. ”

“And you base this upon ?” DM asked.

“ Base upon ? “ Angad exclaimed with wide open eyes and gestured with his hands. “ You saw all the proof yourself, right from the missile plant to it's transport to Pakistan. Then had the testimony of those captured Pakis and Chinese submarine crew. There is no chance that Xedong is the only mastermind behind all this. I'll eat my shoes if somebody proves me wrong. “


“But what's their motive then ? In spite of all their bravado and saber rattling previously, they haven't even expressed any official outrage over loss of 3 of their submarines and the men and missiles that we captured from Gilgit..” DM seemed puzzled and amused at the same time.

Angad allowed himself a wicked smile, “It was your decision to pay back the Pakis in kind that's led to the current situation. By firing the nuke from the shoulder of Pakis, they thought that they could humiliate us and tank our economy and self esteem. They thought that we'll be too afraid to retaliate and thus lose face, become weak and more prone to their bullying. Then they could strengthen their claim on occupied and disputed territories and prance around on world stage as the undisputed champion. But our retaliatory strikes poured cold water on all of their dreams. Capturing that Chinese submarine was our wildest dream come true. The intelligence that we gathered is invaluable.
They now know that we are privy to most of their plans and are more than willing to give them a bloody nose. They probably thought that in worst case scenario for them, we'll engage Pakis in a conventional war and they could come to the aid of their deeper than ocean fliends and make it hell for us. But we preempted their trump card with our own.”


General Zoravar Singh, who had been listening to the conversation quietly interrupted Angad, “All that's fine, but that still doesn't answer the question. What should be our response ?”


DM sopke up before Angad could answer, “What do you think General ? Can we take on Chinese right now ?”

General Singh glanced on his companions from Air Force and Navy before answering, “We've been preparing for such a situation for some time. Although we are not as strong and well equipped as we'd like, but still we can hold our ground as long as it takes. Our Navy has already given them a bloody nose in two sectors. Army and Air Force are already mobilized and just awaiting orders. Our SF are already operating inside Tibet. They'll take it a few notches up as soon as we give the signal.”

DM sighed, “Pitched battles with Chinese. I'm 100% sure that this thought will give another heart attack to our PM. “

Angad grinned and shrugged. DM glanced at him before continuing, “But realistically, what are our options ? China isn't going to be a push over like Pakistan. What can we hope to achieve in terms of a military or political victory over them. By victory, I don't mean any kind of lame brain “moral” thing. I want something that I can use to bargain something useful from them later. Aksai Chin, Tibet anything like that.”

General Singh replied, “I'll be honest with you sir. If Chinese attack us, we will give them a real beating that they will ever forget. It's not 1962.
In case we attack them, they'll put up as fierce resistance as well. I cannot guarantee any territorial gains that we can use as bargaining chips later on. “


DM observed, “Typical zero sum game , eh . What's your opinion about Chinese? Do they think in similar way ?”

“Based on whatever I know about Chinese, I'd say yes. Now that they realize that we've crossed nuclear threshold much earlier they expected, I believe that they'll think a lot before committing to a direct fight. At least that's what I could deduce from Chinese president's statement and their actions till now.” He finished the sentence glancing in Angad's direction who silently nodded in agreement. “


DM spoke with some anger “ Hmm. But that's not a satisfactory conclusion to this mess. We suffered a nuclear strike and the people who actually plotted it all will likely go scot free.”

Angad who seemed to be lost in his own world again replied, “As General said, we do have our men inside their territory. We can inflict considerable amount of pain on them and blame it all on non-state actors, much like their beloved Pakis.”
He paused for a moment as if lost in thought again, then resumed, “ Apart from all that, Lin said that he'll order his forces to stand down and strangely it's been like that only. Their formations are on high alert but there is absolutely no indication that they are mobilizing in a war like mode against us as yet. “


Navy chief spoke up, “That's not entirely correct. We downed one of there nuclear submarines just yesterday along with another that was taken down by Americans. Two other attack submarines are still there just outside our waters. We're tracking one but other is hiding somewhere.”


DM's ears perked up, “Yes, I've been wondering about this too. What do we make up of American involvement in this ? And what about that incident in Spartly Islands. Any further news on that ?”


“Well, except for TV clips from Malaysian channels, we don't have any information on that. Those Chinese personnel were found drifting hundreds of Kms from their base. From whatever we could make of it, it's 100% sure that it was a well planned spec-ops mission. Very few countries except can pull it off there. US of course is one.
As far as that submarine incident is concerned, we're not entirely sure of their motives even now. In my opinion, they were trying to play cop when Chinese submarine decided to act Paki forcing Americans to sink it. But as I said before, it's just an educated guess.”

DM nodded in approval,”Your guess is quite accurate. I had received a call from their Secretary Of Defence just a few minutes before this meeting started. He made an offer of mediating between us and Chinese just to stop the war before it turns worse.”

Suddenly perked up, Angad asked, “What did you say ?”

“Haven't promised anything yet. They also said two of their aircraft carrier groups are steaming full speed in to South China sea and Japan, Chinese also know this.”


Angad smiled, “I don't think that Chinese will swallow it so easily.”

DM looked him in the eye, “We're not going to let that attack go unpunished either.”

War Scenario. Part XLV

0350 Hours
PLA HQ
Beijing


“ What the hell do you mean by that ?” Chinese General Chan with 3 stars on his shoulders shouted in to the phone. “That base is one of our biggest in the region. How could something like that happen without us knowing ?”

His subordinate, a Brigadier under his direct command was on the other line. “I don't know sir. We just received a SOS from the base informing that some unidentified people had overrun their defences and killed or imprisoned all of the defenders. Even the Base Commander is missing.”

“ I don't care about who or how many are missing or dead, I just want to know who did this and punish him.” General Chan hissed with barely suppressed rage.

Brigadier waited for a few seconds as he contemplated his reply. News of numerous major setbacks, one after the other were playing havoc with their carefully planned strategy. What had started out as a win-win game had turned in to a nightmare turning worse with each passing moment. “All that I can say at this stage is that whoever did this was very well equipped and trained. Whole mission reeks of top class special operations team and a big one at that. The base with 300 people was overrun within a hour with no causalities on their side. We should be really careful with this.”

This statement gave a pause to the furious rants of General Chan. Although the attackers had overrun the whole base but still had not assumed full control. They had come in like a surprise typhoon, destroyed everything in their path and then vanished. There were almost a dozen Chinese bases in the region, all of them much smaller and much easier targets. The fact that the attackers had chosen to attack that particular base while ignoring all the low hanging fruit was most worrying aspect of the situation. No only they had good intelligence regarding layout and defences of the base, it's flawless execution also meant that they had prepared for it in advance. Not many countries had such kind of resources and skill at their disposal. Chan nervously chewed on his mustache as he considered all the points. “Are there any American or Russian assets in our seas ? Anybody or anything suspicious enough ?”

Relieved of the tension that had been gnawing on him during the pregnant pause , Brigadier replied immediately, “ No sir.”

Chan snorted derisively, “You should say that you haven't been able to detect anything yet. Somebody just destroyed our base in our own backyard and we had no clue hours after it happened. Something is really screwed up.”

Poor Brigadier had no idea how to answer that, “We are trying our best to catch the miscreants. “

“These are no ordinary miscreants Brigadier. You probably don't have any idea what you are dealing with. “ Shaking his head in mild irritation he asked, “ Tell me something that you know. How are you searching for the attackers and our missing men ?”

“We've pressed all of our remaining ships and aerial reconnaissance vehicles from Beihai and adjoining bases. But I believe we'll need more than that. If I may have your permission, can we call for reinforcements from Hangzhou ? ”

“Are you really that stupid Comrade Haw ? Do you really think that we can move our assets from that area with Japanese and Americans breathing down our necks ? Those ships and planes stay where they are.”

Brigadier objected weakly, “ But sir, it'll take us weeks to cover all that area with what we have it here.”

General Chang realised that the Brigadier was telling the truth Pausing again for a while, he took some deep breaths and asked“What's the location of our 3rd fleet ?”

“ They'll pass Malaysia in few hours.”

“Call them back and order them to help with hunting down the hostiles in Spartlys.”


Brigadier was startled. Searching frantically for polite enough words he mumbled, “ Sir ? But what about our plan regarding Indians ?” What will Admiral say to that ?”

Chan snapped back, “ You need not worry about them, Colonel. I'll talk with Admiral and even the President myself. We need to consolidate our resources not spread them thin. They are nearest and most capable with search and defending our remaining bases. I want them to form a impenetrable wall around west of Spartlys. “

“Yes sir.” Brigadier replied and then spoke with nervous voice again, “ “Sir. There is one more news that you need to know.”

“What is that Comrade ?”

“Vietnam has announced test launch of a ballistic missile tomorrow.”

General Chang almost jumped to the roof, “ Vietnamese have announced what ?”

Brigadier thought that he was beginning to enjoy the sound of panic in his senior officer's voice, “ They have announced that they'll test launch a short range ballistic missile tomorrow.”

“What the hell they think they are doing ? Testing a missile at this time when so much sh1t is flying around! When and how did they develop that missile ? It's impossible.”


Brigadier Haw agreed. “We'd have known if they were actually developing it themselves. This sudden announcement is very suspicious.”

Chan asked “Have Americans or anybody else issued a statement yet ?”

“ No sir. It's too soon for that. We'll hear something in a few hours, hopefully.”
Chang took in a deep breath and exhaled, “Let others take care of this missile business Comrade Haw. You need to concentrate on my orders. One more thing, news of this attack should not be leaked out anywhere “

Brigadier thought of letting hot shot General know what he actually thought of feasibility of the order, but wisely decided to keep quiet about that. He took his leave with a small reply, “ I understand sir. “





0350 Hours
Phalcon AWACS
Skies Over Laddakh

The AWACS had been in air almost continuously for a week now allowing for maintenance and refueling breaks. That particular patrol had been under progress for three and a half hours. A lot of things were going on Chinese side but till now they had shown no inclination of launching a full scale attack. That particular fact was needling Mission Controller more than anything else. Although, most of the Chinese bases had been put on highest alert after Indian attack on Chinese bases in PoK, Chinese so far had not started moblising their Air Force and Army assets near the border. The closest thing that could've caused a shooting incident was when a couple of J10s under control of a Chinese AWACS flying 100 Km inside Chinese territory had come within 2 KM of border. They could've been on an intelligence gathering mission to test and needle the Indian defences. They hadn't been completely unsuccessful in this. Commander of the local Akash battery had no choice but to switch on his radar and track the incoming bandits. The J10s had immediately turned on their tails and went back after powerful Rajendra radar started to track them both. No other plane had come in as close after that. Chinese AWACS was still there flying in an oval pattern, it's emissions clearly visible in the powerful tracking radar of Indian Phalcon which in turn would've been similarly visible to Chinese. Only thing that was different from peacetime were round the clock CAP missions on respective bases, offensive deployment of assets still hadn't happened .

MC glanced nervously at the blips denoting the 11 Chinese fighter aircraft flying in a pre-set pattern around their respective bases. 240 Km to his North-east he could detect tell tale emissions of powerful S-300 radar. It's signal going on and off as some big mountain formed an impenetrable wall as the Phalcon traveled or as Chinese switched it on and off.

War Scenario. Part XLIV

Previous Part

Behind his back, the two man patrol party continued their vigil. The two men were responsible for keeping an eye on almost whole of the sandy beach. Although some new lights had been installed, a large area was still without light coverage. Their patrol area thus consisted of irregular patches of light in a mostly dark beach being pounded by powerful waves. Walking slowly the team reached the last light pole and halted for rest. One of the soldiers took told his companion to wait while he went slightly ahead behind the rocks for a much needed leak. Standing besides a large rock, he unzipped his pants and started the work. He was at it for a few seconds when he noticed a slight movement at the edge of his eyes. If he wasn't tied up at that time, he would have probably investigated the incident. But as it happened, he ignored it and it'd have been only a matter of debate if the outcome would've been any different even if he had gone on to investigate.
Just a moment after he was finished there was a small whooshing sound and an arrow pierced his neck from behind. The startled soldier dropped on wet ground gurgling his own blood. His companion met the same fate seconds later. Four men in black clothes and masks slithered out of the darkness and quickly cut the throats of dying soldiers. Each soldier was carried by two men each and their bodies were dumped carefully out of sight. Once the work was finished, one of the attackers spoke in to his communications device in heavily accented English, “Otter 1 reporting to Crocodile. Beach is clear. “

Reply in not so accented English came in immediately, “Roger that Otter 1. Good work. Rendezvous with Otter 2 and 3 at Waypoint Charlie in 14 minutes.”

The men switched on their night-vision devices and started to sprint towards heart of the base nearly a KM away. Although the route was longer, they kept to a path that kept them away from the lights.


Lt. Col Peng was nursing his third drink of the night in his bed. Despite his misgivings, the liquor was genuine and had given him a good deal of buzz. Coming after the highly stressful day he intended to enjoy each sip of the expensive whiskey. The stash of bootleg DVDs that was seized from the same smugglers was proving to be a good source of entertainment. Grasping the glass in his hand he leaned against the pillows and closed his eyes listening to the soundtrack of one of the Chinese movies. He was feeling far too drunk to actually watch it. In spite of all the crap he had to go trough, life was not that bad after all. Sighing contently, he finished his drink and slipped even more in to his bed. His first clue of the fact that something was wrong came when things suddenly went very dark and at the same time he started having difficulty breathing. He struggled desperately to get his bearings and fought against the alcohol induced stupor made even more strong by his fatigue. A sudden hit on kidneys, almost made him puke, also made him fight off the effects of alcohol on his brain. He realised that his hands and feet were bound tightly and his face covered in some kind of dark cloth. He tried to scream but a gag prevented that. Another hit in same area made him bend over himself in agony and his scream was again muffled by the gag. Rough and firm hands dragged him to his feet and started to drag him somewhere. He tried to resist and was rewarded by another vicious hit that knocked him out.

When he came to his senses, he found himself in the same predicament, his face was still covered by a thick mask and his legs and arms tightly bound. His first instinct was to shout . His throat was parched and he needed water immediately. But almost immediately he remembered his roughing up from the last night checked himself. The self restraint was largely unnecessary as his mouth was still gagged. One thing that he sensed soon enough was that he was not on solid ground anymore. By slow rhythmic bobbing of the hard metallic floor underneath, he realised that he was a prisoner on a ship. Trying desperately to get out of his restraints he started to twist and turn which resulted in him bumping in to another person. He froze immediately, fearing that it was one of his captors. Lying still, he cringed waiting for the hard hitting blow and was more surprised than relieved when none came. Instead, a set of fingers frantically poked and groped him. Feeling bewildered he turned and tried to touch the unknown hand with his. It was soon established that the man was not an enemy and both immediately set about to loosen each other's bonds. The task was not easy and it took them almost a hour to finally break free. At last, with impatient and trembling hands Lt Col Peng tore off the mask from his face and turned to face his helper. It turned out to be one of the men from his base, Xia Shi Gila.. The junior ranked soldier immediately tried to stand up and salute his senior but Lt Col waved him to relax. Sitting cross legged on the hard floor he croaked, “What the hell happened ?”


Gila was feeling dizzy from his earlier attempt to jump to attention and he plopped down on the hard metal floor. “We were attacked last night. Many of our men killed and the rest dumped on this boat. It all happened in minutes. We don't know what hit us. ”

Peng rubbed his forehead and looked around. He realized that he had been dumped inside the engine room of Chinese patrol vessel with damaged rudder. As his junior spoke he tried to take stock of his surroundings. The port holes had been covered and only a trickle of light came through. He could see somebody moving in the feeble light. Ordering the young soldier to keep quiet, he slowly moved towards the moving man and found another of his soldiers bound and tied in similar way as they were. Working feverishly they managed to unshackle the man and then found another tied in similar way. All the men had similar stories to tell. Numerous masked men in dark clothes had appeared out of nowhere and had killed or captured all the Chinese personnel on island. Some of them had been placed on to the patrol vessel which had been towed in roughly southern direction away from the usual shipping lanes. They had heard loud explosions just minutes
after leaving the island.
Cursing loudly, Peng stumbled towards the portholes and tried to look outside. The glass had been painted black and windows sealed from outside. Ordering his juniors to find and open the door he tried to assimilate the situation. No matter which way he looked at it, he was screwed royally. His seniors will certainly take a very dim view of the incident if he ever survived the ordeal. At minimum they would just fire him. But a very long trip to a re-education camp or death by a firing squad seemed more plausible.

Few minutes later, he was out of the engine room on to the deck lost in gloomy thoughts oblivious to what was going on around him. 70 more Chinese were found bound and gagged on various parts of the ship, all repeating the same story with only minor variations. There was not a clue of the attackers though. It was like they were ghosts. He listened to them absently while looking at the night sky. Day break was still hours away and he could virtually see his life and career disappear along with the night.

War Scenario. Part XLIII

Previous Part

1920 Hours
Spartly Islands


Spartly Islands is name of a group of islands spread between seas of China, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan and oil rich kingdom of Brunei. Most of the islands are small inhabited coral reefs interspersed with a few comparatively larger islands covered by dense tropical forests. Human population is sparse and most of the islands have little significance except as means of asserting the maritime boundaries of respective countries. And herein lies the catch. This whole area is believed to be one of the richest oil and natural gas fields. As such even though the islands which are next to useless by themselves are priceless pieces of real estate hotly contested by all the surrounding countries. There have been small scale conflicts and tensions between the participants since a long time. China owing to it's size and military prowess has been particularly successful in staking it's claim on quite a few islands, much to the chagrin of it's neighbours. In most of the cases, Chinese military personnel just sneaked in to the inhabited islands and raised the red flag daring any of other countries to take it down. Although other countries didn't like it a bit, they could do nothing except seething in impotent rage.

FalunGa was name of a mid sized island claimed by Chinese in similar fashion. Although it's much closer to Vietnamese coast, Chinese had been able to stake their claim by bullying the weaker Vietnamese. North-western part of island, facing Vietnam was dominated by a extinct volcano peak, leaving an area of less than 4 square km of inhabitable land for the occupiers.
Over the years, Chinese had made the island a hub for their maritime patrol vessels in addition to an intelligence gathering outpost. A small number of Chinese patrol vessels and an occasional small frigate used the base to refuel and restock regularly. From being an inhabited island in 1970s, the place had grown to be an important military base populated by at least 300 Chinese technicians and military personnel. These were in direct command of a PLA officer of at least Lt. Col rank. During the time that hostilities started between India and China, a 44 years old Lt. Col Peng was officer in charge of base and he was not a happy man at the moment. Intelligence had suggested that something was definitely cooking. Neither of the other stake holders in Spartly Islands, Philipinese, Vietnam or Brunei had ever approved of Chinese tactics in what each country considered it's own backyard. Each one of them had been trying to undermine Chinese and claim as much territory as possible to itself. Defiant, according to some accounts even belligerent attitude shown by Indians had given wings to many hopes to detractors of China. Something diplomatic or even military by any of the these countries was definitely on. Only what and when they didn't know. Lt Col Peng knew that it couldn't be a military offensive. Chinese dragon was more than capable of roasting and swallowing any body foolish enough to attempt anything like that. But he had orders to follow and these had been to step up the base security.
3 additional patrols of 2 soldiers each were added to existing 24x7 security detail and some more flood lights near the docks were installed. Although the base was still less than ideally defended, that was the best that could be done under the circumstances. Engineers and mechanics formed bulk of the Chinese population on base and those mugs could be barely tolerated with ships, guns were just not something that they could be trusted with. HQ had promised at least a platoon worth of reinforcements 2 days ago, but he hadn't heard anything about it since then.

Now as the night advanced, he found himself sitting in his air conditioned office, smoking a cigar and double checking the status report he had to file next morning. The day had been very long with him personally supervising laying down of fences and trip wires, digging of trenches and shouting at the guard patrols to stay awake. To add to his woes, a medium sized patrol vessel had damaged it's rudder while on a routine patrol and had to be taken out of action for at least 6 days. Feeling more tired than he had ever felt his whole life, he closed the file, leaned on back of his chair and inhaled deeply on his cigar. Apparently, the damned thing itself was another of infamous Chinese copies and gave him a coughing fit. Cursing incoherently in between his coughing fits he stumbled out of his chair and threw the cigar on floor in disgust.

Gathering up his belongings and files he got out of his cabin and ordered his orderly to lock it up behind him while he himself started his walk towards his residence which was nothing more than a per-fabricated shelter. But at least it had a mattress and a bed. But before that he decided that he needed to check on his men. The extended patrols were taking a toll on his men and he had no idea when fresh men from mainland were going to arrive in order to ease the burden. Carrying a small satchel which contained some of his belongings and documents, he started a brisk walk towards the nearly deserted beach where he could relax for a bit as well as check on the new guard posts he had ordered.

From the distance, he could see the newly installed flood lights on each corner of the beach gleaming brightly. Very soon, he saw silhouettes of two armed soldiers as they ambled past the harsh light spot created by the flood lights. Nodding in a satisfied fashion, he stood at a distance watching the two soldier patrol as it walked through the light into darkness and back again. Taking one last look at the area, he willed his tired legs to move back to his personal cabin to a bottle of American whiskey that his men had captured from smugglers yesterday. “Hope that doesn't turn out to be another fake like those damned “Cuban cigars”.

War Scenario. Part XXXIX

Previous Part


1150 Hours
CIA Office
Washington DC, USA



Last few days had been really hard on the CIA chief. His eyes, now encircled by dark circles showed that the man had not been able to catch up on sleep for quite some time. He was dragging his feet through the corridors with slumped shoulders and lost expression. The situation for rest of CIA personnel in the office was made worse by his increasingly irritable temper. His subordinates wanted him to doze off for a few hours and get some much needed sleep, both for his sake as well as their own. But nobody was willing to make the suggestion to his face, not at this time when yellow matter had not only hit the fan but also got splashed the people passing by the windows.

Those normally predictable Indians had proved to be really unpredictable when they needed to behave the most. Not only they had nuked the hell out of one of the most vital US “allies” in South Asia, but had also picked up a fight with US's biggest trading partner. The stock markets had tanked all over the world while the fuel prices had sky rocketed to $ 220 a barrel within two days. Governments in numerous countries had been forced to shut down trading in stock markets after stock worth hundreds of billions had evaporated in a matter of hours. Already, self-styled analysts and experts were shouting themselves hoarse claiming all kinds of consequences, ranging from alien intervention to a nuclear world war. Some of the more colourful “experts” were playing on the much hyped date of 21/12/2012 predicting end of the world. The result was a wave of mass panic and hysteria spreading all over the world which the governments had been unable to subdue. Riots had broken out in many cities causing even more panic and destruction.
Cosby was sitting on his chair staring at the documents containing all the details while a small army of agents and analysts ran around bringing even bigger piles of papers to him and other senior officials in the room. He felt drowsy staring at the sheets and felt himself drifting towards sleep. Even the strongest coffee was proving useless in keeping him awake and he inched closer and closer towards blessed oblivion, even if it was for a few minutes. His trance was very rudely broken by the 3 star Admiral who had been shouting on phone earlier.
“Hey Cosby! Cosby, wake up buddy. We are officially in deep shit now.” Admiral Adams bellowed while trying to shake the dozing spook awake.

In spite of his best efforts to sound alert and in control, Cosby could only manage a sniffled yawn, “Uh ..what ?”

Admiral jumped up and down excitedly “Have you been sleeping all this while now ? Those damned Chinese have downed a Taiwanese F-16 over Taiwan Strait !”

All the traces of sleep immediately vanished from Cosby's eyes. “What the hell are you talking about Admiral ? Why'd Chinese do such a thing ? “

Admas just exploded, “You are the intelligence guy here Cosby. You figure it out. We had no information when Pakistanis launched that nuke on India. None when they tried to launch another one and absolutely no clue when Indians took the decision of nuking the cursed place off the world map. Do we run the biggest and most advanced intelligence setup in the world or what ? Now one of my guys in Taiwan phones and tells me that Chinese have picked up a fight with Taiwanese, and you ask me such questions ! ”

Cosby rubbed his head tiredly and groaned pitifully, “Fuc* ! “

Admiral Adams looked at the exhausted man sympathetically, but there was too much sh1t going on for him to be nice, “ First Indians destroyed Pakistan, now Chinese are about to do the same thing with Taiwan. At this rate, we'll have no allies left in that part of the world.”

This time, a 2 star Army General, General Matthews spoke up, “He is right Cosby. We got to do something. Losing the service of those terrorist Pakis is one thing, but loss of Taiwan will really screw things up for us in that part of the world. We have to have Taiwan intact and on our side.

Adams nodded vigorously and added, “If Taiwan is lost, we can say goodbye to all the oil in Spartly Islands. Not to mention what it's going to cost us when people all over the world see us humiliated by loss of our allies while we keep twiddling our thumbs.”

Cosby stared at the pile of papers in front of him while speaking, “True. First Taiwan, then South Korea, then Japan. these greedy Chinese will never stop. “

Adams lit a cigar and puffed on it, “For Chinese, it was Tibet first. We did nothing then either.”

Cosby retorted “Neither did Indians, who had most to lose. After Tibetans of course.”

Matthews who had been pacing the room impatiently interrupted, “Gentlemen, this is no time to discuss history. The point is, the fight between India and China needs to be broken off before it gets too serious. Much before Chinese use it as an excuse to solve their Taiwanese problem once and for all. That means right now. Every single second counts.”

Adams nodded, “You are right General. But how do we do it ? I have only two Carrier Battle Group (CBG) in near area. One is on the eastern coast of Japan which was supposed to conduct the joint exercises with Japanese. The second is in Guam for resupply and repairs. We can't intimidate either China or India with what we have.“

Cosby who had been silent all this while gave no indication that he heard anything that the two men had been discussing. He picked up a sheaf of papers and waved it , “These intelligence reports say that a full scale rebellion has broken out in Tibet and Xinjiang.”

Matthews waved away the information dismissively, “That's not important right now. Chinese always had that problem “

Adams disagreed at once, “ We need to utilize whatever we can General. Have you gone through the reports yet ? Tibetans claim that they've blown up a nuclear missile base.”

Cosby interrupted, “It's just not their claim Admiral. We know for sure that they are telling the truth. But the reprisals by Chinese have been very brutal. PLA has wiped out dozens of villages for revenge, Surviving Tibetan rebels are fighting with all they have, but they wouldn't last much long unless they get more help.

Meanwhile in Xinjiang, Uighur muslims have declared a war on Chinese Han settlers. Approximately 8 hours ago, a mob of Uighurs laid siege to a Han settlement, burnt down dozens of houses and took nearly 200 Hans hostage. Not even one survived when the rescue operation launched by Chinese blew up. Whole province is on fire as Uighurs are fighting pitched battles with Chinese military as well as civilians.
Why not use this to our advantage ? “

War Scenario. Part XXXVIII

Previous Part

1100 Hours
Daxmung Village
110 km North-East of Lhasa
Tibet

The 5 truck convoy flanked by 3 APCs thundered in to the village square throwing the normally tranquil village of Daxmung in to a tizzy. Although the village folks were no strangers to PLA and it's tactics of intimidation, rumours of violence in surrounding areas made them more nervous then usual. It was no surprise then, that all the people stopped whatever they were doing and shut themselves inside their homes. A gruff looking Chinese major poked his head out of hatch of one of the APCs and shouted on a loud speaker, “ All men of this village above 18 years are ordered to come out to the square and answer our questions. We just want some information. No one will be harmed if you cooperate with us.”

He repeated the order 3-4 times while driving through the lanes, getting angrier with each passing moment as no body even dared to peep out. Finally fed up with repeating himself he warned, “All the men are ordered to come outside to village square within 30 seconds, other wise I'll level down this whole damned village with artillery with each one of you idiots inside.”
At his signal, soldiers dismounted from trucks and rest of the APCs and formed a cordon around the houses. With their rifle butts, they pounded doors and windows, shouting obscenities at the villagers hiding inside.

There were some hints of activity inside the houses as sounds of hushed whispers and stifled sobs started to come out of the besieged homes. A single old man clutching a stick for support opened door of one of the houses and nervously walked out. A younger man followed him out immediately and tried to drag him back, but the older man firmly pushed him away.
Seeing the two men, Chinese Major snorted derisively, “That's it ! That's the total number of men in this fuc**** village ? Come out of your holes you stinking rats and answer my questions. Otherwise you all will die.”

The two Tibetan villagers had reached within a few feet of the APC and both stood there nervously shuffling on their feet. Slowly doors of some other houses opened and more men shuffled fearfully out of their housed and formed a huddle around the two men. PLA major scanned the motley group and took out a poster and threw it on the ground, motioning the villagers to pick it up. The poster contained sketches of four Tibetan men. The villagers picked up the poster and passed it around amongst themselves with each one staring at the sketched faces with a fearful confusion.

“ Have you ever seen any of the men in these poster. “?, he asked, nonchalantly while lighting a cigarette.

The villagers exchanged confused glances amongst themselves and most of them shook their heads.

“ Half of you are shaking heads while the rest are standing like statues ? Do you know these men or not ? Answer me .”

The young man who had first come out along with an older one stepped forward and said timidly, “We have never seen these men before. Neither of us know their identity.”

The major stared at the young man for a few seconds and then nodded, “ I see. Who are you ?”

“My name is Dechen” pointing to the old man standing a few steps besides him he said, “and I'm son of the village's Headman. We know every single person in this village and people who pass through. I am absolutely sure that neither of these men have never even set foot here.”

All of a sudden, the PLA major grew livid and spat out his cigarette. Grabbing Dechen by collar of his tunic he first shook him and then threw him aside. Using all of his lung power he shouted, “Don't lie to me you ******** I know for certain that these men were given food and shelter in this village. Just tell me who helped them and where did they go afterward and each one of us will go home happy. Lie to me and your whole miserable village will be burnt to ashes.” Grabbing another man by his neck he shouted again, “ Are you going to tell me the truth or not.”

The scared villager was shaking uncontrollably and could nothing apart from babbling for mercy. Showing a disgusted expression the major pushed him away and faced the huddled villagers. “I'm giving you one final chance to clear your names and save your village from charges of treason and waging war against glorious republic of China. You tell me who these men are and I'll leave you alone. You'll even be rewarded for your service to the Party. Lie and each single one of you, including your women and children will be shot and burnt while still alive. Make your choice.”

Terrified by the warning, the men hurled themselves at the feet of PLA major begging for mercy and claiming innocence. Grimacing, he kicked one of the men and shouted, “Just tell me where are these men ?”

Getting no answer except for claims of innocence he kicked some more men prostrating at his feet and spat in disgust. “Very well. I gave you filthy pigs a chance and you blew it. Now suffer for your insolence.”

Grabbing an AK-56 rifle from a soldier standing near by, he switched it on to full auto and emptied the magazine in to the crowd of villagers in front of him. A number of men who were sitting or standing on the ground collapsed after getting shot. Hearing deadly chatter of the gun, some of the women from surrounding houses who had been watching the carnage from inside rushed out of their houses wailing and crying for mercy. PLA major calmly changed the empty magazine with a full one and took aim at the group of women. Some of the women froze in their steps while others rushed on regardless of the pointed barrel. Glancing at his soldiers with slight amusement in his eyes, he shot the running women then fired rest of the bullets on remaining men.

Handing back the still smoking gun, he lit another cigarette and watched the carnage he had just caused with cold eyes. Dozens of bodies lay bloodied and twitching in the small village square. People who escaped being shot, lay down wailing with fear and sorrow. Spitting out his half smoked cigarette, he crushed it under his boots and signaled his soldiers to get back in their vehicles. Climbing in to his APC, he surveyed the broken village once more and closed the hatch before the convoy started moving away.